They studied together, cheered the Indians to the Rose Bowl and drilled in unison as ROTC cadets. When the Army ordered them to duty in the spring of '43, they moved as a unit from boot camp through officer school, calling themselves "Fire Mission" and giving each other nicknames -- Squid, Weenie, The Tube. But when they went to war, the 51 Stanford men scattered across the world.
A half-century later, two of those ROTC trainees from the Class of '44 resolved to trace their buddies' wartime experiences. Robert "The Frog" Farrar and Richard "Sink Babe" Keusink launched a detective effort that culminated last fall in their self-published book, Fire Mission: 109 (so named because the field artillerymen from Stanford made up the 109th class of their officer candidate school). The book compiles war stories and nostalgic musings from the group's 34 living members.
"I was always curious about what happened to the guys," Farrar says. "I briefly saw a lot of them right after the war, back at Stanford [finishing their degrees]. But at that point, we really didn't want to talk about what we had done or where we went -- we were just so glad to be back."
What did happen to the guys? All but one fought overseas. Three won Bronze Stars, four received Purple Hearts, and one got an Air Medal for his 43 missions over Germany. Amazingly, not one died in service.
Farrar shipped out to steamy New Guinea, where he contracted a case of jungle rot that ravaged the skin on his feet. "I was about to be sent stateside, but a dermatologist arrived with something new called penicillin," he recalls. Two weeks later he was back on duty, this time in the Philippines.
Now mostly retired, 17 of the Fire Mission men came back to campus for Reunion Homecoming last fall, several with wives they had wooed on the Farm. The old friends traded salty tales and misty-eyed toasts at a luncheon celebrating the book. And in a class panel the next day, Farrar shared a letter from his 21-year-old granddaughter. "I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like to be in something as horrid as war," she wrote after reading his book. "You participated, though, in history, and without you and your friends, this country we live in could be a lot different . . . and for that I thank you."
-- Laurie J. Vaughan
